Shadow of the giant

personal favor
for a soldier who lived a hundred years ago. Or two hundred. Or three
hundred."
    "The funding won't be contingent," said Rackham.
"We're funding it using the same investment software. It's really good,
Bean. This is going to be one of the best-funded projects ever, in a few
years."
    Bean laughed. "Mazer, you just don't understand how far
people will go to get their hands on money that they think is being wasted on
pure research. You'll see. But no, I take that back. You won't see. It'll happen
after you're dead. I'll see. And I'll raise a glass to you, among my little
children, and I'll say, Here's to you, Mazer Rackham, you foolish old optimist.
You thought humans were better than they are, which is why you went to all the
trouble of saving the human race a couple of times."
    Mazer put an arm around Bean's waist and clinched tight for
a moment. "Kiss the babies good-bye."
    "I will not," said Bean. "Do you think I want
them to have nightmares of a giant bending over them and trying to eat them?"
    "Eat them!"
    "Babies fear being eaten," said Bean.
"There's a sound evolutionary reason for it, considering that in our
ancestral homeland in Africa hyenas would always have been happy to carry off a
human baby and eat it. I guess you've never read the child-rearing
literature."
    "Sounds more like Grimm's Fairy Tales."
    Bean walked from bed to bed, touching each child in return.
Perhaps spending a bit longer with Ramon, since he had spent so much time with
him, compared to mere minutes with the others.
    Then he left the room and followed Rackham out to the
enclosed van that was waiting for him.
     
     
    Suriyawong heard the report and the order: The press
conference has been held; Thai participation in the FPE has been announced; now
begin active operations against the enemy.
    Suri timed the departure of all six contingents so that they
would arrive simultaneously, more or less. He also ordered the Chinese battle
choppers into position, ready to join in the battle as soon as surprise was
achieved.
    One of them would take him to where Virlomi would be.
    If there are any gods looking out for her, thought
Suriyawong, then let her live. Even if a hundred thousand soldiers die for her
pride, please let her live. The good she did, the greatness in her, should
count for something. The mistakes of generals can kill many thousands, but
they're still mistakes. She set out for victory, not destruction. She should be
punished only for her intent, not the result.
    Not that her intent was all that good.
    But you—you gods of war! Shiva, you destroyer!—what was
Virlomi, ever, except your servant? Will you let your servant be destroyed,
solely because she was so good at her job?
     
     
    St. Petersburg had fallen more quickly than anyone expected.
The resistance hadn't even been enough to count as "token." Even the
police had fled, and the Finns and Estonians ended up working to maintain
public order rather than fight a determined enemy.
    But that was all just a matter of reports to Petra, who was
improvising her way across Russia. Without a huge air force, there was no way
to airlift her army of Brazilians and Rwandans to Moscow. So she was bringing
them in on passenger trains, carefully watching from what looked like
recreational aircraft so she'd know as soon as there was any kind of problem.
The heavier ordnance was being carried on the highway by big Polish and German
moving vans, of the kind that plied the highways across Europe all the time,
stopping only to eat and pee and visit roadside whores. Now they carried the
war that the Russians had begun straight to Moscow.
    If the enemy was determined, they would be able to track
Petra's army's progress. After all, there was no concealing what the trains
were carrying as they raced through stations without stopping and demanded that
the tracks be cleared in front of them "or we'll blast you and your
station and your stupid little village of baby-killing Russians to
smithereens!" All rhetoric—a single telephone pole dropped across the
tracks here and there would have slowed them down considerably. And they
weren't about to start killing civilians.
    But the Russians didn't know that. Peter had told her that
Vlad was sure the commanders who were left in Moscow would panic. "They're
runners, not fighters. That doesn't mean nobody will fight—but it will be local
people. Scattered. Wherever you meet resistance, just go around. If the Russian
army in China is stopped and